by Dan Waldschmidt

22 RULES SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PEOPLE LIVE BY.

You don’t have to be sophisticated and or use the latest strategies to outclass and dominate your competition. You just have to live by a different set of rules.

“SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE LIVE BY A DIFFERENT SET OF RULES THAN EVERYONE ELSE.”

Here are a few of those:

Heal others instead of selling them something — Focus considerable effort on being brutally honest, intellectually candid and in solving the complex problems that your competitors shy away from. Be belligerent about cutting to the core of the real issue

Focus less on automated technology and more on empathy — Instead of using lead scores to drive engagement, develop a training system focused on solving expected problems for industry veterans.

Invest in tools that help you scale your awesomeness — Instead of focusing on just working smarter, focus on effectiveness across the entire enterprise (e.g. Slack, Todoist, Cloze, Feedly, Mention, etc…)

Make it easy for people to do business with you — Keep the contracts short. And stop hiding your phone number and where people can find you to get support. Make it outrageously simple for prospects to engage with you.

Use your humanity as an advantage — Talk, email, text, social like a human — not a robot. Train your organization to apologize quickly and thoroughly. Do what is right even though it seems like you are losing in the short term.

Make people feel “awesome” — Be memorable. It trumps every other emotion. Find ways to be surprising even it makes you uncomfortable. You’ll end up building deeper relationships and get the “benefit of the doubt” when you screw up down the road.

Build warriors. Protect your castle first — A great culture beats great sales training in any business in any industry. Hire people who are willing to do whatever it takes in order to be massively successful. Ethics matters more than results.

Hiring for experience is the #1 reason you’ll fail — Bring in team members who have a bright future instead of a legendary past. Hire for hard work and creativity, not experience in the industry you are playing in.

Stop doing so many meetings, reports, and status updates — Your best people respond to candor and tough love. Your mediocre team members use weekly meetings and quarterly performance reviews as a way to justify poor results. Change that.

Do what you say. Say what you do — There is no reason why you shouldn’t be following up and following through — and yet it is the huge reason why so many organizations fail. Candor. Clarity. And consistency.

Focus on your line of target customers more than the bottom line — You can’t boost your profit if you don’t know how to generate more prospects. Sometimes, getting cash flow positive is enough momentum to figure out how to stay headed in the right direction.

Play the long game. Take the high road — Success isn’t a quarter, a deal, or a dream client. It’s you doing the right thing, the right way, until you get the results that you are looking for.

Smother your customers, not your leads — Spend less time with prospects and more time with people who are already doing business with you. Over-deliver after you’ve closed the deal. Make people feel like they got a steal doing business with you.

A mission beats a sales quota any day of the week — Give people a reason to dream, not a mark in the CRM to get close to. People will work hard for money. But people will give their life for a mission.

A great mission trumps a stellar process — Stop yelling about your sales process and create an inspired environment where the process is magnetic — where your team goes the extra mile in order to achieve results (without unnecessary nagging).

The “good old days” were horrible — Create a culture where the future is what you talk about — not “big fish” tales from the past. Keep people focused on taking their game to the next level.

Give a lot more value than people pay for — Lose all the whitepapers and start delivering value in ways that people truly find magical. Be thoughtful and deliberate to make sure people feel loved and appreciated.

Don’t shirk shrinks — The mental battle for sales success is the biggest challenge you will face. Spend time with a coach, mentor, or therapist on a regular basis in order to keep your head in the game. Losing starts the moment you start thinking about it.

Only worry about what you can improve — Focus on the details and fix what’s broken rather than hoping things automatically improve without you having to do anything about it.

Get “new school” with conversations — Stop wasting time talking about things and communicate real-time using apps and messaging platforms that allow people to prioritize information, quantify needs, and clarify expectations.

Fight passive aggression and mediocrity head on — Don’t let people get away with playing games and rigging the system to stay employed but ineffective as a part of the team. Fire losers fast.

Be honest about wins and losses — Sometimes you just get lucky. Don’t pretend like it was great sales skills. Other times you lose when you should have been the winner. Talk about what works and what doesn’t.

So perhaps the only important question for you to ask yourself is: “What rules do you live by?”

Post navigation

About the author

Dan Waldschmidt doesn’t just talk about leveling up. He’s obsessed with it. He's set records as an ultra-runner and been the personal strategist for the leading business leaders of our time. He wrote a book, called EDGY Conversations that accidentally became a worldwide bestseller and continues to share his insights from the stage as a keynote speaker and on the blogs and podcasts you will find here. Most days, you'll find Dan heads-down, working on breakthrough strategies for his clients at EDGY Inc, a highly-focused, invite-only, business strategy execution company based out of Silicon Valley.

Your Favorites

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Waldschmidt doesn’t just talk about leveling up. He’s obsessed with it. He's set records as an ultra-runner and been the personal strategist for the leading business leaders of our time. He wrote a book, called EDGY Conversations that accidentally became a worldwide bestseller and continues to share his insights from the stage as a keynote speaker and on the blogs and podcasts you will find here. Most days, you'll find Dan heads-down, working on breakthrough strategies for his clients at EDGY Inc, a highly-focused, invite-only, business strategy execution company based out of Silicon Valley.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

I weighed 168 pounds. With all my gear on. The only reason why I know that is because I was required to step on a scale and be measured. It was the Arkansas Traveller 100 — and my first 100-mile ultra-marathon. The reason for being weighed sounds absurd at first. But if you lose too …

There are a lot of untold stories in business. Have you noticed that? Most books about business success or self-improvement, in general, spend a lot of time on two parts of the journey — the beginning and the end. If you’re overweight and feel lousy, here’s what you need to do so so that eventually …

I started out selling air conditioning systems to homeowners at 19. That was my first “professional” job. Over the last 21 years, I’ve worked over 94,487 hours. Maybe more. At some point, the numbers get blurry. So I know a little something about work. Most jobs require 40 hours of work per week. If you …

Before you could be happy or rich or in love you must know your purpose and your mission, what it is that you enjoy, and the rules by which you are willing to play the game of life.

Wanna talk about it?

No comments
just community

We love awesome insights from people who are on a mission to accomplish big dreams. Leave a comment. Build a relationship. Level-up with free, elite training. It's more than talk -- it's a lifestyle and a group of people encouraging you every step of the way.